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This paper assesses the reliability and validity of cognitive and socioemotional skills measures and investigates the correlation between schooling, skills acquisition, and labor earnings. The primary data from Pakistan incorporates two innovations related to measurement and sampling. On measurement, the paper develops and implements a battery of instruments intended to capture cognitive and socioemotional skills among young adults. On sampling, the paper uses a panel that follows respondents from their original rural locations in 2003 to their residences in 2018, a period over which 38 percent of the respondents left their native villages. In terms of their validity and reliability, our skills measures compare favorably to previous measurement attempts in low- and middle-income countries. The following are documented in the data: (a) more years of schooling are correlated with higher cognitive and socioemotional skills; (b) labor earnings are correlated with cognitive and socioemotional skills as well as years of schooling; and (c) the earnings-skills correlations depend on respondents' migration status. The magnitudes of the correlations between schooling and skills on the one hand and earnings and skills on the other are consistent with a widespread concern that such skills are under-produced in the schooling system. [This report was prepared by the World Bank Group's Development Research Group, Development Economics. Funding was provided by RISE and World Bank's Strategic Research Program Fund.]

While learning agility has become a hot topic in recent decades, there's not yet widespread understanding of its underlying nature, nor the best way for organizations and talent development leaders to leverage it, especially because it isn't a skill that's necessarily concentrated at the top of an organization. Instead, it's likely dispersed among leaders at all levels. This white paper offers the Center for Creative Leadership's (CCL's) perspective on three of the most fundamental and frequent questions about learning agility: (1) What is learning agility, and who possesses it?; (2) How do I identify learning agility in my organization's leaders?; and (3) How do I develop learning agility in myself and my organization's leaders? The goal of this report is to help maximize workforces, put people in the right roles, and help better design and implement leadership strategies.

The sizable gender gap in college enrolment, especially among African Americans, constitutes a puzzling empirical regularity that may have serious consequences on marriage markets, male labor force participation and the diversity of college campuses. For instance, only 35.7 percent of all African American undergraduate students were men in 2004. Reduced form results show that, while family background covariates cannot account for the observed gap, proxy measures for non-cognitive skills are crucial to explain it. Moreover, a sequential model of educational attainment indicates that males have actually higher preferences for education than females after controlling for latent factors (i.e. cognitive and non-cognitive skills). The model also shows that cognitive skills strongly affect the decision to move from one school level to the next, especially after finishing high school, but cannot account for disparities between genders. On the contrary, the substantial differences in the distribution of non-cognitive skills between males and females make these abilities critical to explain the gender gap in educational attainment across and within races. Appendices present 12 tables and 1 figure.

Governments and other stakeholders have become increasingly interested in assessing the skills of their adult populations in order to monitor how well prepared they are to meet the challenges of the new information world. The current paper provides an overview of the conceptual framework for the assessment of numeracy developed for the OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). This builds on the numeracy framework developed for the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL). Numeracy is broadly defined and complemented with a definition of "numerate behaviour". Four facets of numerate behaviour are identified and described to guide the development of assessment tasks. An annex presents: Factors Affecting Complexity of Numeracy Items.(Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 3 footnotes.)

Governments and other stakeholders have become increasingly interested in assessing the skills of their adult populations for the purposes of monitoring how well prepared they are for the challenges of the new information world. The current paper provides an overview of the conceptual framework developed for the assessment of problem solving in technology-rich environments for the OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). This covers the specific class of problems that people encounter when using information and communication technologies. These include problems where the existence of the problem is a consequence of the availability of new technologies, where the solution requires the use of computer-based applications or where the problem relates to the management or use of information technologies. (Contains 1 figure and 5 tables.)

Governments and other stakeholders are increasingly interested in assessing the skills of their adult populations in order to monitor how well prepared they are for the challenges of the modern knowledge-based society. The current paper provides an overview of the conceptual framework guiding the development of the assessment of literacy in the OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). It builds upon earlier conceptions of literacy from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) in the 1990s and the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) in 2003 and 2006 to facilitate an appropriate assessment of the broad range of literacy skills required for the 21st century. The framework broadens the definition of literacy to make it relevant to the information age, in particular, by including the skills of reading in digital environments. (Contains 4 tables, 2 figures and 9 footnotes.)

This paper examines the extent to which family wealth affects the race-child achievement association for young children based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We found little evidence that wealth mediates the black-white test scores gap. However, liquid assets, particularly holding in stocks and mutual funds, are positively associated with school-aged children's test scores. We speculate that this may partly reflect unmeasured personality traits of the parents such as a stronger future orientation or the financial savvy. We also found that the association was mediated through both material deprivation and family processes pathways. We made an attempt to strengthen the causal inference between wealth and children's test scores with the instrumental variable approach, the results were nevertheless inconclusive. (Contains 11 tables.)

This is the fifth paper published by The Centre for Literacy in its Working Papers on Literacy series, which presents new perspectives on literacy-related topics relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. This paper was adapted from a longer manuscript submitted by Kieran Egan in 1999 for the UNESCO Award for Research in Adult Literacy. In this paper, Professor Egan applies a cross-disciplinary frame of reference to the question of literacy acquisition. His thesis is that the understanding of the world and the acquisition of literacy are shaped by a set of cognitive capacities or "tools" that are present in oral cultures and expand in the early stages of literacy. He suggests that many of these tools, including story, metaphor, jokes and humour, association, and more, could and should shape literacy teaching to both children and adults. He challenges the current focus on functional literacy and takes us back to pre-history and early Greek times to demonstrate the potential of drawing on the cognitive tools shared by participants in oral and literate cultures. (A bibliography is included.)

This paper discusses the use of telephone surveys as a substitute for, or addition to, the use of door-to-door surveys in assessing adult literacy ability. Part 1 addresses issues of validity in adult literacy assessment, including the concepts of construct or inferential validity and action or use validity. Part 2 is a review of related research that has used telephone and mail surveys to assess the cognitive abilities of adults. Part 3 discusses the theoretical model of literacy that the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) and International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) have used and how that model can be modified to incorporate a developmental and componential model of literacy that also includes the oral language aspects of literacy given in the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of 1998. Part 4 addresses several issues about the use of telephone and mail surveys, including concerns about using these survey methods in such a way as to make continuity in trend data from previous surveys of adult literacy possible. Appendixes include 69 references and a summary of an empirical study of the proposition that at a certain stage adults' comprehension of language can be assessed as well by listening as by reading. (Author/YLB)

This report documents the design, development, and psychometric characteristics of the assessment instruments used in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). The ECLS-K is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. The ECLS-K was designed to assess the relationship between a child's academic and social development and a wide range of family, school, and community variables. While the ECLS-K will ultimately span kindergarten through fifth grade, this report documents the psychometric results for four time points--fall- and spring-kindergarten and fall- and spring-first grade. Three domains are represented by the ECLS-K kindergarten and first grade (K-1) assessment instruments: cognitive (direct and indirect), socioemotional, and psychomotor. Direct cognitive measures refer to scores based on children's "direct" responses to cognitive test items. In kindergarten and first grade, direct cognitive tests were administered in reading, mathematics, and general knowledge. Indirect cognitive measures were ratings by teachers of the children's cognitive performance in closely related areas: language and literacy, mathematical thinking, and general knowledge. Following an introduction in chapter 1, chapter 2 of this report describes the objectives and design of the assessment instruments. For the cognitive tests, this includes selection of content domains, and for the direct cognitive tests, the rationale for individually administered adaptive tests, the source, and development of frameworks. Chapter 3 describes the development and field testing of the item pools for the direct cognitive measures, the selection of test items for the final forms, and the creation of a Spanish-language version of the mathematics assessment. It also introduces the criterion-referenced subsets of items selected for the reading and mathematics tests. Chapter 4 contains an overview of the Item Response Theory (IRT) procedures used to scale the test scores. Chapter 5 presents the psychometric characteristics of the direct cognitive tests given in kindergarten and first grade. Chapter 6 describes the development and psychometric characteristics of the indirect and psychomotor measures and discusses the relationship between the direct and indirect measures of the cognitive domains. Chapter 7 describes performance on the Oral Language Development Scale (OLDS), the instrument used to evaluate children's fluency in English and Spanish. Chapter 8 presents issues in analyzing longitudinal measures of cognitive skills. [The following authors contributed to this report: Sally Atkins-Burnett, Tom Hoffer, Samuel J. Meisels, Karen Tourangeau, Jerry West, and Elvira Germino Hausken.]

Using a national panel data set that links the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) with the NLSY Child data, this study examines the impact of homeownership on several child outcomes. Data analysis indicates that children of homeowners have better home environments, higher cognitive test scores, and fewer behavior problems than do children of renters. The study finds that these results hold even after controlling for a large number of economic, social, and demographic variables. Owning a home compared with renting leads to a 13 to 23 percent higher quality home environment. The independent impact of homeownership combined with its positive impact on the home environment results in the children of homeowners achieving math scores up to nine percent higher and reading scores up to seven percent higher, with reductions in children's behavior problems of up to three percent. These findings suggest that homeownership support programs should be targeted to households with young children. The measurement of the home environment questionnaire is appended. (Contains 61 references.) (SM)

This study, part of the longitudinal national Study of Student Learning, investigated the precollege characteristics and college experiences of 825 first-generation college students compared to those of 1,860 traditional students at 23 diverse institutions nationwide. First-year gains in students' reading, math, and critical thinking abilities were also compared for the two student groups. Compared to traditional students, findings indicated that first-generation students were more likely to: come from low income families; be Hispanic; have weaker reading, math, and critical thinking skills; have lower degree aspirations; and have less involvement with peers and teachers in high school. First-generation students also had the following characteristics: they have more dependent children, expected to take longer to complete their degree programs, had received less encouragement from their parents to attend college, tended to take fewer courses in the traditional fields and more courses in technical and preprofessional courses, spent fewer hours studying and more hours working, and were less likely to perceive faculty members as concerned with student development and teaching. Although traditional students made greater net gains in reading during their first-year, the two groups gained to about the same degree in math and critical thinking skills. (Contains 41 references and 3 tables.) (SW)

This study evaluated whether self reports of students' academic development can serve as proxies for achievement test scores from a national assessment of college student learning. The convergent and discriminant validity of self reports and test scores were examined with 1,568 students at four community colleges (n=828) and six four-year colleges and universities (N=740). Data sources were scores on the College Basic Academic Subjects Examination (College BASE) and self reports of cognitive development derived from the specifications for College BASE. Multitrait-multimethod analyses indicated that self reports and test scores developed from the same set of test specifications do measure the same constructs, although the scores from one type of measurement may not be"substitutable" for scores from the other type of measurement. The analyses produced ambiguous results concerning the stability of relationships across different types of institutions. It is concluded that using self reports as general indicators of achievement can be justified, but substituting self reports for test scores cannot be justified based on this study's results. (Contains 45 references.) (SW)

Previous studies indicate that only 6 percent of the nation's population possess the minimum level of understanding of science and technology needed to function minimally as citizens and consumers. Many educators speculate that scientific illiteracy originates in elementary school classrooms, not from intellectual inferiority, but rather from specific teacher attitudes. Under the assumption that analytical ability and spatial ability are measurements of the same cognitive skills, a pilot study examined those skills as measured by the Learning Style Profile, with pre- and post-test scores for three treatment groups and one control group from a total of 24 undergraduates with an elementary education major. The first treatment group was exposed to an animated video activity; the second treatment group participated in a cube comparison test (flexibility of closure) developed from the Educational Testing Service's Kit of Factor Referenced Cognitive Tests; the third treatment group was involved in both of these activities; and the control group was not exposed to either activity. No significant differences were found across or within the groups on the pre- and post-test scores. It is hypothesized that a larger study population, a longer test of spatial ability, and a longer treatment will detect improvement in spatial ability. (JJK)

What are creative people like? There is evidence that four personality traits appear to differentiate more creative from less creative people: devotion to work, independence, drive for originality, and flexibility. Creative people do not have higher intelligence quotients (IQs) or get better school grades than others--in fact, no cognitive abilities have been identified which reliably distinguish between creative and non-creative people. All of the variables which discriminate between creative and non-creative people are motivational. What cognitive factors are involved in creative acts? Years of preparation are essential for creative activity in many fields. Goal setting is the critical element in many creative acts. Other factors are: choosing good problem representations, defining good problems in ill-defined problem situations, accurately evaluating the shortcomings of your own work, and taking effective action to revise these shortcomings. The failure of cognitive ability measures such as IQ to predict creative performance indicates that creative performance has its origin not in innate cognitive abilities but rather in the motivation of the creative person. That is, differences in creativity have their origin in differences in motivation. Over a period of time, these differences in motivation cause cognitive differences (such as the acquisition of extensive knowledge) which contribute in critical ways to creative performance. These motivational and cognitive differences jointly account for the observed differences between creative and non-creative individuals, but the origin is in motivation, not in cognition. (Forty-one references are attached.) (SR)

A study investigated the roles of general ability and specific abilities as predictors of several job performance criteria for Air Force enlistees in eight jobs. Subjects were 1,545 Air Force enlistees entering from 1984 through 1988 who had tested with the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) parallel forms 11, 12, or 13. Subjects had completed both basic military training and technical training and were for the most part working in their first term of enlistment. They were mostly white, male, 17 to 23 years old, high school or better graduates, with an average job tenure of about 28 months. General cognitive ability and specific abilities (the interaction of general ability and experience) were defined by scores on the first and subsequent principal components of the enlistment and selection and classification test, the ASVAB. Multiple regression analyses conducted in correlation matrices corrected for range restriction revealed that general ability was the best predictor of all criterion measures and that specific abilities added a statistically significant but practically small amount to predictive efficiency. For classification of large numbers of applications into large numbers of jobs, the incremental prediction due to specific abilities could be useful. (Contains 47 references.) (YLB)

As a desired outcome of education, ethical thinking has roots in philosophy, developmental psychology, and political movements that advocate for developing knowledge, capabilities, and dispositions beyond those associated with traditional school subjects. Economists, business leaders, and educators have long advocated for preparing students for an increasingly global, interconnected, and technologically complex world, where individuals and groups are brought into dialogue on issues that necessarily invoke notions of justice, rights, the good, and other ethical considerations. This paper proposes a definition of ethical thinking as a 21st-century skill, drawing on K-12 and higher education trans-academic skills frameworks that foreground ethics, responsibility, and related competencies. Literature in philosophy, moral psychology, and education are brought together to inform that definition and to describe theories on the development, malleability, and cultural variability of moral reasoning, the most researched construct related to ethical thinking. The paper describes and presents evidence supporting various instructional approaches to moral development, particularly its cognitive aspects. The paper concludes with a survey of assessments of moral reasoning and key considerations in assessing ethical thinking.

This report presents the results of a study designed to evaluate the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation's (JOCRF's) measurement of structural visualization. Three experimental tests--the Incomplete Open Cubes Test, the Guilford-Zimmerman Spatial Visualization Test, and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices--were added to the JOCRF's test battery and administered to between 2,199 and 2,814 clients using the JOCRF's aptitude testing services. Complete measurements were available for 917 males and 801 females. Tests from the regular battery also analyzed were: (1) measures of structural visualization, the Wiggly Block and Paper Folding Tests; (2) Analytical Reasoning; and (3) Inductive Reasoning. Scores from item response theory methods were measured for the tests. Results suggest that: the Wiggly Block Test contains a small non-spatial component, attributable to the use of a distinctive feature-extraction strategy; and the Paper Folding Test contains a large non-spatial component, attributable to the use of a distinctive feature-extraction strategy and general reasoning ability. Overall, the results show that the relative independence of spatial measures from verbal and reasoning measures is no longer characteristic of many spatial tests currently in use. Ten figures and 17 tables summarize study data. A 65-item list of references is included. (SLD)

This paper investigated the effects of educational attainment on occupational status and earnings among men. Drawing on nine data sets, it attempted to assess the effects of schooling that persist after measured and unmeasured aspects of family background, and measured cognitive skill were controlled. It also examined differences in the effects of schooling among men of varying ages, races, cognitive levels, and parental occupational backgrounds. When cognitive ability and family background were controlled, most high school graduates did not have an advantage over grammar school graduates in early occupational status. The advantage of college graduates over high school graduates in attaining occupational status was substantial. Among men who were similar, the advantage in current occupational status associated with completing four years of high school was less than one half of the advantage associated with completing four years of college. A detailed analysis of interactions between education and race, measured ability, and father's occupational groups is included. This analysis shows no significant relationship between the variables. (Author/AM)

This publication contains 14 papers, most of which were written by instructors of higher education in Australia and Great Britain. Following an introduction, the first five papers are "The Development of Children's Map Ability" (Simon Catling), "Published Guidance to Pupils on Atlas Mapwork Skills" (Herbert Sandford), "Tactual Mapping and the Bold Atlas of Australia" (John Roberts), "Students' Ability to Transform Verbal and Visual Information" (Rod Gerber and Nea Stewart-Dore), "Children Talking to Learn," (Michael Williams). Using microcomputers in geography education is the subject of the sixth paper, "On Sitting Back and Letting It Happen: How to Be Unchained and Use Microcomputers in Geographical Education (Colin Davey). A case study in preservice teacher education is presented in paper number seven, "The Armidale Heritage Study: A Case Study in Applied Research in Pre-Service Teacher Education" (E.S. Elphick and Warren Halloway). The remaining papers are "Investigating the National Estate: Some Observations from an Implementation Study" (Colin Davey and Anthony Milne), and "Educational Materials and the Corporate Sector: Some Ideological Implications" (Jane Williamson), "Bias in Geography Textbooks" (John Fien), "Teaching Geography to Less-Able 11-14 Year Olds" (Graham Corney and Eleanor Rawling), "Attitudes and Approaches to Teaching Less Able Pupils in Year 8 Geography in Queensland" (John Fien, Rodney Gerber, and Peter Wilson), "Geography Methods Courses and Student Morale" (Anne Carter), and "Geography in the New Zealand Educational System and the Process of Curriculum Change" (Frances Slater). (LP)

This paper is the second of a series of four reports that document the achievement monitoring component of a three-year study on the acquisition of addition-subtraction problem-solving skills by young children. A set of performance objectives contained in or ancillary to 10 instructional units on sentence-writing for verbal problems and algorithms specified test content. Tests measuring group progress toward these objectives were administered after each unit. Data for the tests given after the three units covered in the fall semester of grade 2 are presented in this paper. The scores for each objective, developed using matrix sampling procedures, indicated satisfactory progress on all but three objectives for which mastery had been expected. These objectives involved sentence-writing for the numbers 0-20. Performance on the other objectives was generally satisfactory and in fact frequently surpassed expectations relative to instruction, particularly for objectives associated with the numbers 0-99. Administrator's manuals and student tests forms R, S, & T; item statistics; and performance by objective are included in the appendices. (Author/JAZ)

This study investigates how the psychological and social processes of children participating in an instructional program in critical thinking become engaged as children incorporate cultural and sex-typed information into the development of specific cognitive skills. Forty boys and girls randomly selected from four fifth-grade classes at two elementary schools participated in the study. The children were administered pre- and post-measures that assessed cognitive skill development in a structured task and in a novel task. In addition, data on instructional practices, curricular materials concerning thinking skills, and students' communicative competence in pre- and post-interviews were collected for qualitative analysis. Cognitive skill development appeared to be developmental and learned. Students in both schools gained significantly in measures of cognitive skill development. However, students who were enrolled in the intervention school had better and more developed skills than those in the nonintervention school. The researchers hypothesized that boys and girls may be encouraged to develop, select, and apply cognitive skills differently according to situational demands and constraints. These data show that boys and girls are differentially exposed to teaching strategies aimed at the production of intelligent behavior. Pre- and post-measures indicate that boys and girls differ in their application of cognitive skills during different tasks. (Author/PCB)

Beginning with the principle that self-concept and self-esteem are learned, this paper describes the adolescent self and its social concomitants. The depiction of adolescence emphasizes adolescents' ability to think abstractly and their knowledge of the mind's ability to process, direct, and manipulate experience. In contrast with the "radical empiricist" younger child, the adolescent is seen as a "psychological clinician." This "clinician" includes social personality characteristics in his or her conceptualization of self, learns to integrate diverse elements of the self, and knows the self in relation to others and to social conventions. It is acknowledged that, while adolescents are introspective and self-analytical, they may sometimes experience painful self-consciousness and engage in histrionics. The discussion very briefly considers factors influencing and influenced by the development of social competency and self-esteem. Changes in self-esteem are explored, with emphasis being given to the principles that (1) motivation for maintaining and improving self-esteem is ever-present, and (2) the self-concept develops in a social context. Implications of these principles for improving self-esteem and countering effects of unemployment are pointed out. Also discussed are the way adolescents think about problems of adolescents, such as early pregnancy and drug abuse, and the relationship of low self-esteem and school absenteeism. Concluding remarks explore the topic of subcultures and adolescent identity. Included in the discussion is a brief description of the punk rock subcultures of Great Britain, Australia, and Los Angeles. (RH)

This review of research on Asian American performance on cognitive measures (especially in comparison with the performance of whites) covers studies of intelligence test performance, academic ability, aptitude and achievement, cognitive style, and career paths (as influenced by cognitive abilities) among young children, elementary and secondary school students, applicants for admission to higher education, and college and graduate students since 1960. The review reveals that on intelligence and aptitude tests, Asian Americans have consistently scored higher in mathematics and lower in verbal sections than the United States population as a whole. Studies of cognitive style suggest that Asian Americans lean toward field independence and tend to do better in cognitive analysis and restructuring tasks than in activities that require greater social sensitivity. Examination of career paths indicates that Asian Americans are overrepresented in higher education institutions and in academic fields that require aptitudes for mathematics, spatial conceptualization, and reasoning, but are underrepresented in humanities and the social sciences. The review is said to demonstrate that widely-used, standardized individual and group assessment instruments have provided valid, consistent, and educationally useful information about the mental abilities of Asian Americans. Future directions in assessing academic potential and evaluating achievement among bilingual and limited-English-speaking students are presented. (Author/MJL)

The influence of the first year of college on the development of critical thinking was assessed. Matched groups of students who attended and who did not attend college were compared on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal over a 1 year period. Secondary school level of thinking and other covariates (e.g., aptitude, socioeconomic status, educational aspirations) were assessed. Students with 1 year of college had significantly higher total critical thinking scores and significantly higher scores on the interpretation and evaluation of arguments subscales. The advantages accruing to college attendance were modest. These effects appeared to be the same for all students, irrespective of individual differences in gender, race, and secondary school levels of critical thinking, aptitude, grades, socioeconomic status, and educational aspirations. Additional analyses suggests that net of the study covariates college selectivity, curricular emphasis, and individual measures of intellectual and social involvement during college had no significant associations with critical thinking. A composite measure of intellectual and social involvement during the freshman year did have positive partial correlations with critical thinking. Included are 34 references. (Author/SW)

This paper describes Fulton's (1984) developmental teaching program and the research that supports its use. It identifies the instructional procedures that seem to contribute to the program's success, and details these procedures so that teachers can adopt them for immediate use in their classrooms. An overview of the program discusses competency-based instruction and mastery learning, visual mediators (schemata), cognitive and academic skills, and direct instruction. Research on the developmental teaching program is subsequently discussed in terms of effects on academic progress, reading comprehension, and math skills. Four major elements of the program that have been shown to contribute to students' improved performance are explored: (1) the emphasis on acquisition of concepts; (2) the use of mediators, including verbal, visual, and semantic mediators, to enhance students' schema development; and (3) the use of active learning and direct instruction techniques. Implications of the concept development and cognitive skills aspects of the program for the classroom are pointed out. Concluding remarks concern issues to be resolved through further research: the efficacy of the program in promoting students' cognitive skills and the effectiveness of the program with high-achieving students. Approximately 70 references are cited. (RH)

The purpose of this investigation was to classify a sample of high school biology students into concrete and formal operational levels using three separate instruments: (1) a battery of Piagetian tasks (the pendulum, bending rods, and the balance beam); (2) a written biology examination consisting of questions requiring concrete and formal operations; and (3) a subject-free examination also consisting of questions requiring concrete and formal reasoning. Using the obtained data, the authors' purpose was to determine if the logical operations under question were closely tied to specific content. Sixty-eight high school students (32 males and 36 females) enrolled in a biology course at Delphi High School in Delphi, Indiana served as subjects. The subjects did not perform more formally on the subject matter free Longeot examination and on the biology examination than on the Piagetian tasks. It was concluded that Piagetian tasks are relatively content free and can serve as realistic indicators of concrete and formal thinking abilities. (Author/DS)

This study proposes that children's phonological behavior at Stage VI of sensorimotor development may show markedly decreased variability compared to children at Stage V. According to Piaget, sensorimotor development during Stage VI is distinguished from preceding stages by the onset of representational ability and ability to form mental combinations. Twenty normally developing children, half of whom were at the "one-word" stage and the other at the "two-word" stage (respectively V and VI), were seen for a minimum of two and a maximum of four sessions within a period of six weeks. A controlled experimental playroom with normal environmental stimuli and a standard set of objects and books were used. The Ordinal Scales of Psychological Development (Uzgiris and Hunt, 1975) were administered, and samples of nonimitative speech were taken. The data were subjected to analyses of production variability, optional processes, and phone classes. Results indicated: (1) Children at Stage VI manifested significantly less production variability than at Stage V; (2) a greater relative number of optional processes were necessary in describing Stage VI phonological behavior; (3) Stage VI children showed a greater number of phone classes per child; and (4) a marked decrease in variability correspondence of word-initial sounds was evident. The study concludes that there is significantly less variability in the phonological behavior of children at Stage VI than at Stage V, suggesting a degree of discontinuity in phonological development. (MHP)

In four parts, this discussion describes characteristics of the thought of infants, preschool children, primary school students, and adolescents. Topics briefly addressed in part I, on the thought processes/capabilities of babies, concern sensorimotor thought without abstraction, the importance of physical exploration, the development of intentionality, learning about cause and effect and properties of objects, and the development of symbolic thought. Table 1 describes motor development in the first 3 years, and Table 2 delineates six stages in the development of object permanence. Discussion of the development of preschool children in part II focuses on combining and transferring information; reversing observations; egocentricity; animism and artificialism; intuition and sequential associations; cause and effect; classification; and applications (specifically concerning preschoolers' drawings, dreams, and concepts of death, as well as professional practice, preoperational thought in adults, and the transitional years). Table 3 illustrates conservation of liquid, number, matter, length, area, and volume. The development of the primary school student is described in part III in terms of the extension of conservation, seriation, classification, concepts of number and time, concrete thinking, verbal problems, hypothetical problems, proportions, combinatorial logic, and applications to primary school children's social concepts. Educational implications are also discussed. In part IV, adolescents are discussed with reference to the egocentric idealistic crisis; combinatorial logic; hypothetical deductive thinking; impression formation; use of symbols for symbols; and, very briefly, thought beyond formal thought. (RH)

This description of toddlers and preschool children emphasizes how young children think and describes the development of self-concept. Language development and antisocial and prosocial behavior are also discussed. The exploration of children's thought processes begins with two principles: (1) Concepts originate in activity; and (2) Motor development enhances cognitive development. Subsequent discussion focuses on concepts of physical causation and object permanence; the development and nature of symbolic thought; methods of transferring information; reversibility, associating, and classification; preconceptual and intuitive thinking; and practical applications of research into the cognitive development of young children. Language is discussed in terms of the role of action in language development, the young child's understanding of words, egocentricity, and influences of the home environment. Social behavior is discussed with regard to aggression, altruism, and empathy. Discussion of self-concept development includes consideration of origins; assertive behavior; discipline; self-individuation; the impact of adult imprecisions and taboos; reflected appraisals; influences of parental interest, security, and reference groups; and aspects of disruptions in self-concept formation. (RH)

The hypothesis that higher levels of job knowledge and/or more extensive career exploration would be indicated in higher correlations between self-estimates and measured interests was investigated in two separate studies. Job knowledge was assessed using the Job Knowledge Survey (JKS), and career exploration was assessed using the questionnaire, Finding Out Facts about Jobs (FOFAJ). In the first study, the JKS was administered to 77 Australian students in year 10 together with the Vocational Interest Survey, a questionnaire of vocational interests, and the Work Interest Survey, a self-rating scale of the same interests. The effect of level of consistency among interests and the relationship between vocational types and job knowledge were analyzed. Results showed that neither factor influenced job knowledge and did not support the hypothesis that job knowledge and self-estimate ability are related. In the second study, FOFAJ was administered to 101 students in year 10. The two measures used in the first study were also administered. No evidence indicated that scores on the career exploration measure were affected by students' vocational type or the consistency of their interests. Self-estimate ability was not correlated significantly with the extent of career exploration. However, differentiation among the measured interests was related to career exploration. (YLB)

Based on the assumption that the kind of instruction provided during testing is important when examining children's zones of proximal development, two methods of dynamic assessment, "graduated prompt" and "mediation," were compared to each other and to static assessment. In dynamic assessment, the examiner sets up a learning environment in the testing situation and takes measures on changes from pre- to post-training performance and on the amount of instruction that was required from the tester for the child to obtain the posttest performance level. Developed originally for school-age children, the graduated prompt procedure includes a series of hints or prompts presented in a graduated sequence of increasing explicitness; children receive these aids in order to learn the rules needed to solve the problem correctly. In the mediational assessment method, examiners intentionally and directly teach the principles and strategies needed for task completion. The standard static method measures only the products of prior learning. A total of 60 children 4 to 6 years of age who were at academic risk participated. Findings revealed that children receiving either method of dynamic assessment were better able to perform a cognitive task independently than were children receiving static assessment. Children receiving the mediation method of dynamic assessment performed a transfer task better than did the graduated prompt and static assessment groups. (RH)